When an abnormality is generated in a host computer, a hardware reset is performed. A general hardware reset resets the entire system board including a core of a processor, such as a CPU (Central Processing Unit), and peripheral processors, such as a memory controller and a LAN (Local Area Network) controller, in order to set each part on the system board that forms the host computer to an initial state. Fault information, such as a trace (or an operation log) used for fault analysis, is frequently changed and is stored in a volatile memory for this reason. However, when the volatile memory is set to the initial state by the hardware reset, the volatile memory will not be refreshed and data stored in the volatile memory will be destroyed.
In addition, one example of a method of retaining the fault information causes a monitoring apparatus, which may be called a SVP (SerVice Processor), to execute a memory dump in place of the host computer in which the abnormality is generated. However, when the abnormality is generated in the SVP itself, the SVP itself may not retain the fault information. For this reason, when the fault is generated in the SVP, the cause of the fault must be specified by obtaining materials for the fault check from the SVP and analyzing the materials. The fault refers to a situation in which an OS (Operating System) of the SVP, such as a Linux (registered trademark) OS, executes a panic reboot.
Conventionally, there are cases in which the fault information related to the fault generated in the SVP may not be acquired. More particularly, when the OS of the SVP executes the panic reboot and the SVP is thereafter rebooted, the data such as the fault information stored in the volatile memory may be destroyed, because the retaining of the data in the volatile memory is not guaranteed.
In the case of a general-purpose computer, a backup of the data stored in the volatile memory is retained in a nonvolatile memory or a hard disk drive. However, the SVP in many cases may not be provided with the expensive, nonvolatile memory or the hard disk drive in order to minimize the cost. Even in a case in which the nonvolatile memory is provided in the SVP, the nonvolatile memory may have an extremely limited storage capacity. For this reason, in the SVP, the data must be retained in the volatile memory. While there are demands to retain data that may be rewritten a large number of times in the volatile memory and to make the data accessible even after rebooting of the SVP, there are also demands to retain the data stored in the volatile memory so that the data stored in the volatile memory may be erased when the power is turned OFF but the data will not be destroyed by the rebooting of the SVP.
According to the conventional monitoring apparatus, when the abnormality is generated in the monitoring apparatus and the hardware reset is performed, the data such as the fault information stored in the volatile memory is destroyed by the rebooting of the monitoring apparatus.